So he said in an open debate of the Security Council on this issue and also stressed the need to take measures to reduce this impact on the population.

According to the headline, the use of explosive weapons in urban areas is an option that carries a high risk of indiscriminate impact.

In this sense, he recalled the effects of urban warfare in countries such as Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria, where vital infrastructure such as hospitals and schools were badly damaged.

Guterres called on countries to demonstrate the political will to investigate and prosecute alleged war crimes to the fullest extent possible.

“The terrifying human cost of waging war in cities is not inevitable; it is a choice,” said the UN’s top representative.

Many victims of these conflicts suffer lifelong disabilities and serious psychological trauma, in addition to the damage to the infrastructure of basic services, affecting the health and well-being of the population, he noted.

The secretary general pointed out that currently some 50 million people suffer in some way from conflicts in urban areas and stressed that the warring parties do not take care to distinguish civilians from combatants and launch indiscriminate attacks whose main victims are innocent people.

Likewise, the Portuguese diplomat insisted on the urgent need to respect international humanitarian law, but that the best solution to this problem is that there be no wars in urban areas or in any other.

ef/acl/if